


Okay, this looks bad...

by deathsteel



Series: One-Shots, Tumblr Prompts, and Unrelated Crap [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Avengers!AU, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, One Shot (for now...), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Torture, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:30:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1986489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsteel/pseuds/deathsteel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm Dean Winchester, better known as Hawkeye. I work for SHIELD as a spy, but I'm also a part time Avenger. Yes, I was the one that was controlled by Michael, and no I would not like to talk about how it felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Okay, this looks bad...

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for destielficletchallenge, prompt: Person A gets kidnapped and Person B comes to rescue him.

"Man, HYDRA must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel these days," the archer drawled, spitting another mouthful of blood onto the dirty concrete floor at the feet of the rough looking Asian man nearest him. "But I guess getting the wind knocked out of your sails by an organization you'd thought you bagged might leave you scrambling for good help that hasn't been compromised."

"Does he ever shut up?" one of his captors barked in clipped Japanese, looking up from where he was attaching a series of electrodes to a corroded car battery to see their hostage grinning at them from the sturdy metal chair that he had been tied to hours before. "He's giving me a headache. Knock him out again or something."

"We're out of tranquilizers," another man muttered, his eyes flickering over to the man that had somehow managed to slip into one of the most heavily guarded _yakuza_ headquarters in Kobe without tripping even one of their extensive security measures. "Taichi, shut him up."

The largest man in the room who had been lurking near the doorway nodded obediently, producing a thick piece of cloth from one of the pockets of his trousers as he stepped menacingly towards Dean. Which, no. Being gagged was _not_ going to work for him.

"Hey! I've got an idea," Dean declared, tensing his bare forearms against the coarse braided rope that his kidnappers had wrapped around his wrists and waist. He'd managed to loosen it a bit in the last couple of hours, but it still wasn't enough for him to get out of it as quickly as he would need to in order to defend himself, even if he did dislocate his shoulder first. "You want to know why I'm here, right? Kind of the point of all of the torture and punching and general playground bullying? So, I'll tell you."

There were four _yakuza_ in the room with him, which honestly he'd been up against worse odds before (Budapest came roaring to the forefront of his mind), but that wasn't what was making him doubt his whole grand untested plan. The simple fact of the matter was, he was getting a little bit desperate. Despite his cock-suredness and ability to withstand pretty much any physical torture known to man, Dean was still not 100% comfortable with being back in the field since the whole Michael taking control of his mind with his weird celestial scepter ma-bob.

Dean didn't understand why everyone trusted him not to betray S.H.I.E.L.D. again.

He'd thought about telling Singer before he'd left that he wanted to take Sam with him; Bluebeard could infiltrate almost any organization, probably could've at least sweet talked his way into the _oyabun's_ good graces without Dean having to climb through dusty ventilation shafts, but the assassin had walked out of their last sparring session in frustration when Dean had stopped fighting back and the Russian was notorious for holding grudges. So the archer scrapped that plan.

Dean even briefly considered having some kind of handler in his ear because that would have at least meant that S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't relying solely on the tracking device embedded in the agency's logo on his tac suit to find him if shit went fubar, but they might've talked him from going off spec and that was the last thing Dean had wanted.

Hell, even having Crowley in his stupid suit or Tran hulking out all over the place would've been better than nothing, which was exactly what he had at this point. Gabriel was taking care of family shit off in Asgard, which weirdly made Dean slightly thankful that his own shitty Dad had pretty much sold him to the circus; families of choice were much more his style anyway. Cap was off reconnecting with the Ozian soldier in some cabin in Colorado and Dean couldn't even find it in his heart to be mad at the two women for not being around when he was getting his ass handed to him by wannabe Japanese gangsters. And if Cas were still alive then…not the fucking point.

"Why were you breaking in?" the man that Dean had dubbed 'face-tattoo' asked him in thickly accented English, carefully settling his hand over his gun that was tucked into his waistband as he spoke. "What were you hoping to steal?"

"I'm going to go ahead and correct you there," Dean answered, feeling like the whole disappointed parent vibe that Cap did so well got lost in translation because he couldn't wag his finger like the other woman did. "I wasn't stealing, I was reclaiming."

"Reclaiming what?" face-tattoo snapped impatiently, nodding at the man who had been working with the car battery to continue with what he was doing and yea, he _really_ did not want to find out where they were planning to put those electrodes on him.

"Your boss works for HYDRA," the archer answered simply, flexing his arms again because he was pretty sure if he broke his pinkie he could get one of his hands out and start working on the bulky knots keeping him bound. As long as it wasn't his shooting hand, he could handle wearing a splint for a day or two until Medical stopped hovering over him. "They stole schematics for weapons that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been developing based on Asgardian and Jotunheimian technology. I drew the short straw and had to come fetch them."

"He's S.H.I.E.L.D.!" the man who had most recently been hitting Dean in the face with a short-handled truncheon exclaimed in his native tongue, taking a cautious step away from the archer who still hadn't quite figured out how to get out of his restraints. Whatever he did was gonna hurt, that he knew for sure. "He's-he's an Avenger! He's Hawkeye, we should go!"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is dead," face-tattoo said smugly in Japanese, picking up a knife off of the table as he moved towards Dean who went still at the other man's approach lest he give away the fact that he was trying to escape. "No one has seen the Avengers together since the Battle of New York and I doubt they even care about the most worthless member of their group."

"Plus," he continued, switching back to English probably because he was under the (false) assumption that Dean couldn't speak sixteen different languages because everyone knew that Hawkeye was a circus freak who hadn't finished high school. Being underestimated had always helped him in the past, but Dean had the uneasy feeling that it wouldn't help him this time. " _Oyabun-san_ wouldn't mind if his _shatei_ had a little fun with our guest before disposing of him. Afterall, how often do we have a celebrity is our midst?"

"Judging by these digs I'm guessing its not very often," Dean joked raising his chin defiantly when face-tattoo ran the tip of his knife over the edge of his jaw. "Might want to spruce up the place before Rihanna visits: couple of throw pillows, some potted plants, maybe a coat of paint."

The man gave Dean a twisted smile before reaching out and fisting the collar of his tac suit in one hand, using the other that held the knife to cut the protective material away from his body. He stepped around the archer to finish striping the tattered remains of his sleeveless vest off of his back, handing it off to Taichi with instructions to take it as far away as from their location as possible.

"You're not my first S.H.I.E.L.D. agent," he explained, dropping his voice so only Dean could hear him as the other men bustled about the room collecting various implements of torture. "You _are_ the prettiest though, maybe I won't mess up your face too much."

"Fuck you," Dean spat vehemently, turning his head sharply in an effort to catch face-tattoo off guard with a headbutt; failing when his captor ducked back with a laugh and a chiding wag of his finger. "I'd rather fucking die first."

"Lucky for you I'm not too picky on that point," face-tattoo said smugly, striding back across the room to consult with the man who was connecting the final wires to the car battery.

Dean gritted his teeth against the onslaught that he knew was coming from the three men left in the room with him, taking a mental stock of the injuries he already had so he would know if they got any worse. That cracked rib would surely break from a well-placed punch and he knew that Medical was going to give him hell if he ended up with a punctured lung or something, but with any luck these goons wouldn't be smart enough to go for the places that would really hurt; his arms and his hands, his eyes or the little bit of hearing that he had left.

Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was all he had now, not that there was much of S.H.I.E.L.D. left for him to work for, but Dean assumed that as long as Bob Singer was still kicking there would still be people like him who wanted to fight the good fight. So he couldn't afford to lose the few paltry skills he had left to offer to a secret government agency that most of the world thought didn't exist anymore because he couldn't go back to his empty house that still held the life he and Cas had built together and he couldn't give it up either. He had to stay in his self-imposed limbo of denial and guilt or everything else would fall apart.

If getting beaten up by uber-creepy dudes with sadistic streaks a mile wide meant he got to do just that, well then Dean was willing to literally take one on the chin for the good of mankind and his psyche.

* * *

By hour four he was seriously starting to question whether or not mankind would just be better off without him.

He had been the one to let Michael loose on the Helicarrier afterall, pointed out all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s weakness to a madman who he had already seen devastate a small New Mexico town over some stupid sibling rivalry. Dean had been Michael's willing little puppet, doing everything the alien god had asked him to do and more, despite all of the promises that he had made to himself about being his own man...despite all of the promises he had made to Cas when they had exchanged rings at a small wedding chapel in Massachusetts one rare weekend when neither of them had had missions to prep for.

He blearily wished that he had his ring on right now as face-tattoo's goons moved the electrodes that had been placed at his temples and on his chest to new patches of skin that weren't charred and blistered. But it had felt wrong wearing it after Cas died, especially since the blood of his husband was on his hands just as much as it was on Michael's. So it stayed with Sam, in a box of weird trinkets that the other man kept from their time with Cas as S.H.I.E.L.D's most effective three-man team.

"Guess no one is coming for you," face-tattoo cooed sympathetically at Dean, patting his bloody hair away from his forehead before grimacing and wiping his hands on the pants of Dean's tac suit. "Where is Bluebeard, hmm? Your partner must not care for you anymore, Hawk."

"He's not my partner," Dean slurred in stilted Japanese, causing all of his assailants to startle back in surprise for a moment. "'Sright, dumbasses. I knew what you were sayin' this whole time. Surprise."

"It doesn't matter," the man controlling the battery murmured, licking his lips nervously as he glanced at face-tattoo briefly before continuing to speak. "An asset like him...someone is coming for him. We should just kill him and go already."

"You can go if you're scared," face-tattoo hissed, grabbing Dean's hair to tug his head back up when his chin drifted down towards his chest. "I'm not done with our pretty bird yet. He's going to be begging me to kill him, sing so sweet and so soft."

Dean smirked to himself when the two men fled the room after hesitating for all of five seconds, they were probably more intelligent than your average run of the mill goomba. Good for them.

"Samuil will come get me," Dean said with a groan after face-tattoo let go of him to go inspect the selection of knives that his cohorts had left behind. "He's not my partner anymore, but he's practically my brother. He will know I'm in trouble."

"I'm aware of your friendship with Bluebeard," face-tattoo mused, caressing a particularly wicked looking curved blade with the tips of his fingers. "It doesn't worry me, we are both know that I'm not his type. However, I don't think I'm going to tempt fate by dallying with you too much longer."

For some reason that statement made him breathe a sigh of relief. Dean knew that there was no way in hell that the _yakuza_ was going to let him go, but death didn't seem like such a bad alternative. It hadn't seemed like a bad alternative for the last two years, honestly. But someone had always _been_ there to change his mind: Sam with his no-nonsense approach to feelings and his insistence that he couldn't love in the way that Dean had loved Cas, Kevin with his mild-manner and his willingness to just listen if that's what Dean needed, Crowley with his neverending supply of bourbon, Charlie with her empathy because she knew what it was like to lose someone you loved.

They had been enough to help him get a couple hours of sleep each night even though the nightmares were a constant companion, enough to justify not just giving up completely because there were people who might miss him. But Dean knew he was a burden to all of them and maybe the time had come to relieve them of that, maybe the fact that no one had come for him was a sign that they knew that too.

It was that acceptance that made the dam that had been holding back all of his thoughts and memories and feelings of Cas finally crack, if he couldn't talk about his husband before he died then when could he?

"You've heard of Strike Team Delta, right?" Dean asked, chuckling softly at the look of horrified comprehension that showed in face-tattoo's eyes. "Take that as a yes, then. That was my team and we were good. We were really really good, took down more bad guys than any other three man team in S.H.I.E.L.D. history."

"Bragging is so unbecoming," the Japanese man muttered under his breath, finally picking up two daggers off of the table and moving to begin the task of cutting off the bottom of Dean's tac suit. "Pity that's all that seems to come out of that pretty mouth."

"But I was on another team before that," Dean continued, blocking out the feeling of the other man's hot, toxic breath against his thighs; just like he had done with Michael. "It was just me and a handler, the guy who brought me into S.H.I.E.L.D in the first place. He rode my ass those first couple of years, but I was better for it, he was the best agent that place ever had."

Blood loss must be getting to him because Dean was starting to see things, there were an awful lot of cuts on his...well everywhere really. Shadows that shouldn't be there were coming through the room's one thin, barred window; flashing lights that used to be a silent call sign for a codename that only a handful of people at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew because its user had found that going by just his last name was equally intimidating to baddies and newbs alike.

"He's...he died," he whispered, he could count the number of time he had actually said that outloud on one hand. "It was my fault."

That one he had said more times than he could ever possibly count.

"But maybe you've heard of him," Dean murmured, his eyes sliding shut as he focused on the dim memory of Cas's face as he had last seen him in the video of his husband facing down Michael; blue eyes burning with determination and anger and resolve. Sam had told him Cas couldn't sleep the whole time Dean had been under the Asgardian's control; yet another reason to blame himself for the other man's death. "They called him the Angel of Death."

Dean could vaguely remember hearing a couple of loud bangs and feeling hands on his face and neck in a way that was too disturbingly intimate. Bad guys weren't supposed to be gentle when they destroyed you, in his experience they never were.

"You stupid assbutt," a familar voice growled affectionately. "What on earth did you think you were doing?"

When he woke up it was to see the now familiar face of Dr. Harvelle frowning down at him. The older woman was as close to a mom as he was going to get and Dean hated that she rarely left the overly sterile hallways of S.H.I.E.L.D's medical floor because jeez, he really fucking hated Medical with a fiery passion that consumed his soul. Years of growing up in the circus and sleeping in dusty rafters or vents had given Dean a healthy appreciation of the phrase 'God made dirt and dirt don't hurt', it wasn't his fault the too clean and shiny surfaces of Medical made his skin crawl.

So Dean only saw the doctor when he was hurt, which had made for many fond memories of him escaping from Medical by whatever means possible and avoiding the good drugs that made him unable to wake himself up from the nightmares of Michael's scepter bursting through Cas's chest over and over and over.

"Great, you're awake," Dr. Harvelle muttered, sounding like she didn't think it was great at all as she whipped a penlight out of her pocket and started shining it in his eyes. "Your fanclub has been cluttering up my hallways for the past two days. I'm going to let them see that you're alive and then you're going to eat something. Yes, it will be soup. No, I will not get you pie. Ready?"

"Bring it," Dean slurred, his limbs feeling numb enough from whatever medicine they had him on that he thought he could probably handle even Gabriel if the adopted Asgardian Trickster God felt the need to make sure he was okay with his enthusiastic, super-human strength.

The woman went to the door of his private room and motioned to whoever was outside, glaring sternly as Crowley in one of his unmechanized suits strolled cavalierly into the room, followed by Sam with his hair pulled back in a hasty bundle at the back of his head and Kevin who was trying to appear as small as possible in his rumpled lab coat.

"You have five minutes," the doctor warned, pointing at each Avenger in turn like they were school-children and not Earth's mightest heroes. "And don't get him too excited or you will have to answer to someone far scarier than me."

Sam's usually stoic countenance shifted suddenly to one that Dean could only describe as a cross between apprehensive, amused, and maybe...constipated. But maybe it was just the drugs talking cause by the time the assassin approached where he was lying in his hospital bed the other man's face was once again carefully blank. Luckily Dean had always been able to read the agent code-named Bluebeard and he could tell that the other man was hiding something.

"Pleased to see you're not dead then Robin Hood," Crowley said stepping forward to poke at Dean's toes that were sticking out from the end of his blanket. "Meg is already going out of her mind as it is, no reason to add more fuel to that fury fire. I guess I should call and tell her you're out of the woods, wouldn't want her to disband the company just to spite me or anything."

Iron Man stepped away into one of the corners of the room that wasn't crowded with medical machinery and pulled out the latest incarnation of the CrowPhone, speaking into it as quietly as someone with such a large personality could manage. Meanwhile Kevin picked up the archer's medical charts from the foot of the bed and flipped through them thoughtfully, frowning in all the places where Dean figured his injuries were listed and humming to himself.

Sam pulled a chair that was sitting next to his bed closer, running the tips of his fingers over the suit jacket that was draped across it's back almost reverently before shaking his head and sitting down. The assassin regarded Dean for a long, silent moment with his hands crossed precisely in his lap before the door to his room suddenly opening drew the assembled heroes' attention.

 _Shortest five minutes ever_. Was Dean's first thought as his head lolled towards the doorway, followed immediately by: _Huh, they must have me on the_ _really_ _good meds this time._

"Don't freak out," Sam said lowly beside Dean, eyes flicking to the heart monitor that was beeping madly above the archer's bed. "Collins, maybe now isn't the best time."

Dean dimly realized that maybe it wasn't normal for other people to see another person's hallucinations and that maybe he was breathing just a bit too fast for someone who _knew_ that their dead husband who had just walked through the door was just that, not real.

So why could Sam see Agent Castiel Collins too? And why was Kevin stepping forward to shake his husband's free hand, the one that wasn't holding a cup of coffee from The Hub's canteen? And why was Crowley calling Cas 'Agent Feathers' before frowning at the dead man's crooked blue tie, the one that Dean had given Cas for his handler's birthday during his first year at S.H.I.E.L.D., like it had personally insulted him?

"We'll give you two some privacy then," Kevin muttered, pushing Crowley towards the door when the billionaire started spouting questions at Cas about Life Model Decoys and threatening to sue S.H.I.E.L.D. for every penny it had if he found out they had stolen his blueprints. "C'mon Fergus, we'll go find some science to do."

Samuil pushed himself purposefully out of his chair, stalking towards Cas in a way that still managed to look menacing despite the fact that the assassin was wearing S.H.I.E.L.D. issued sweatpants and a t-shirt. Agent Collins stood his ground, exuding that air of confidence and calm that Dean had found so attractive when he was first learning the ropes at S.H.I.E.L.D. It had helped that Collins hadn't talked to him like he was a piece of uneducated, carnie, criminal scum, but right now the past wasn't what concerned him.

Sam knew several ways to kill a man just using an eraser, Dean had seen him do it.

"Sir," Sam said evenly, gesturing with a quick jut of his chin towards the senior agent's jawline and a dark purple bruise that Dean only just now noticed was there. Weird, last he'd heard ghosts didn't bruise very easily. "Guess I didn't hit you as hard as I thought I did."

"Not as hard as I deserved certainly," Castiel replied his voice carrying a hint of apology that Dean figured he had probably missed hearing the first time around. "How long has he been awake?"

"Just a few minutes," Sam said softly, probably too soft for Dean to actually physically hear, but he had learned to read lips long ago which the assassin and their former handler both fucking knew so they must have wanted him to know what they were saying. "Leave him again and I'll kill you...sir."

"Next time the honor's all yours," Cas offered, nodding seriously at Sam and earning an amused quirk of an eyebrow which coming from the killer was the equivalent of anyone else doubling over with laughter before Sam glanced one more time at Dean's prone form and left the room.

"You're looking pretty spry for a dead guy there, boss," Dean spat out, his hands fisting in the blankets at his sides because if Sam and Crowley and Kevin were all talking to the dead guy in the room then there was definitely trouble in River City.

He didn't know if this was some last test from Psych to see if he was actually fit to be back in the field or maybe Gabriel trying to make things easier for him by using his magic to give him back the only person that he'd ever loved or even fucking Singer trying to get leverage against him so that he could call in a favor later, but Dean wasn't sure he even cared. Because whatever it was standing in front of him looked and talked and moved just like Cas and Dean wasn't sure that he would be able to stop himself from losing it completely if it touched him.

"What can I say?" Castiel replied with a bitter sounding laugh. "Tahiti does wonders for a person's health. Mind if I sit?"

"Of course not," Dean said, sweeping his hand towards the chair that Sam had just vacated like it was the grand prize on the Showcase Showdown and only wincing just a little when the stiff muscles in his arms and back knotted in protest. "What's mine is yours, right hubs?"

"I'll remind you that you said that the next time I ask you to share your pie with me," the older man joked, his smile not reaching his blue eyes as he sat with a barely there pained groan, taking a sip of his coffee before he sat it to the side. "Now, do you mind telling me what exactly you were doing in Kobe?"

"I was on a mission," Dean said shortly, eyeing the form of the clone (that was a thing now right? If aliens were real, clones had to be real.) suspiciously. "Direct orders from Singer, the rest is classified."

"Need I remind you that my clearance level is higher than yours, Winchester?" the tone was fond and Dean sucked in a sharp breath when he was hit with the sudden memory of his husband denying Dean more bacon one lazy Sunday morning on the grounds that he wasn't a Level Seven agent. "I've been told that you went off mission parameters, Kobe was supposed to be routine surveillance and you went in without backup or an exit strategy; a rookie mistake. One that you never even made when you were one actually, it was everything that you aren't: stupid and reckless and-"

"Suicidal?" Dean asked angrily, biting his lip hard to keep anything else from coming out. God, why had he said that? Psych was never going to let him leave The Hub ever again, he'd be lucky if they even let him have his bow now.

"Bob told me he'd gotten you back," Castiel choked out, voice thick with a good imitation of real human emotion as he slumped forward in his seat to bury his face in his hands. "He told me that you had grieved, were living at The Tower now, were coping."

"Well, master spies tend to lie every now and then," Dean muttered, wishing that this facsimile of his husband would just go away already because it hurt too much to keep looking at it, but he couldn't bring himself to look away either.

"Yea, I know," the senior agent said morosely. "That's why I've been tracking you. I couldn't sleep at night not knowing for sure that you were okay. Ironically, the first time I trust someone to keep an eye on your tracking signal it goes offline for the first time in over a year."

"Thank you, Taichi," Dean muttered, his eyes sliding over the tired features of the man sitting next to him; the deep, dark circles under Cas's eyes and the days old stubble that had never seen the hallowed halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. before. "With all due respect, you look like shit, sir."

The senior agent let out a hollow laugh and straightened back up, squaring his shoulders as he went. There was a familiar hardness glinting in his eyes that Dean had only seen when Cas was really pissed about something, but trying to hide it; him ending up in Medical usually brought out that look in his husband. But this wasn't his husband...it couldn't be, right?

"You should see the other guys," Castiel deadpanned, his eyes tracking over Dean's face before his expression softened again and he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers over the archer's cheeks. "Hey now, none of that. They didn't even know I was coming, I'm fine."

"You're dead," Dean blurted, feeling the hot tears that were running down his face now that Castiel's cool fingers had traced their path for him. "This isn't real, I'm hallucinating."

His husband let out a pained noise and moved closer to slide his hand further down to cradle the back of Dean's head, blue eyes betraying more emotions than a clone or an imposter could ever hope to fake.

"I know that you have no reason to believe me," Castiel started slowly as Dean took advantage of their closeness to twist his hand into the backwards tie around the other man's neck. Even if this was a...what had Crowley called it? A life decoy? Dean was broken enough to still want it. "But I'm not a hallucination and this isn't a trick. I'm here, Dean, and I'll turn in my badge before I let them keep me away from you again."

"Let them? So you were just following orders then?" Dean asked brokenly, willing to accept the fact that Cas would rather stay away from someone who had betrayed the only home he had ever known if it meant that the other man was really real. If it meant that he hadn't killed his husband like he had killed all of those other agents.

"It's...," the other man said hesitantly, removing his hands from Dean before he gently pried his abused tie out of the archer's grip. "I can't really explain it, it's…"

"Classified?" Dean finished humorlessly, letting his hand drop heavily back down onto the bed in defeat. Of course Cas wasn't going to tell him what was going on, Dean saw how the other agents still looked at him; like he could snap and plant and arrow in their throat at any second. Hell, maybe he could.

"Complicated," Castiel corrected, his lips twisting sourly as he said it before he fixed his eyes pleadingly on Dean.

"I don't remember eight months of time, Dean. It's just…" the older man waved a hand distractedly over his face. "Gone. And when I woke up in a grass shack in Tahiti they told me that I had been legally dead for eight seconds before they revived me and put me in a medicated coma to heal. I was in physical therapy for another six months and by then you had moved into the tower and had a funeral...broke the news to my sister. Bob told me you had moved on."

"I could never _jus_ t move on, Cas," Dean admitted softly, letting his head loll towards the other man because it was easier than trying to keep his stiff neck up. "Never, not from you."

Agent Collins (A.K.A. The Angel of Death, A.K.A. Bob Singer's one good eye) sucked in a sharp breath before quickly leaning over the battered form of Agent Winchester (A.K.A. Hawkeye, A.K.A. the World's Greatest Marksmen) and shakily pressing their lips together. After two years it wasn't the kiss he was expecting, filled with Cas's righteous anger over Dean practically stabbing him with that scepter himself and Dean's desperation to have the other man forgive him, but it was exactly the kiss he needed.

Too gentle and too sincere for Dean to do anything other than let out a short sob before tugging his husband down into the narrow hospital bed with him, heedless of his injuries and of the wires attaching him to the machines that were blaring his haywire heartbeat above him. He knew that there were probably a bazillion other things that Cas was going to want to discuss before all was said and done, sitreps to be filled out, and the watchful eye of Medical to escape from, but for now this was enough.

"Sweet Lord," Dr. Harvelle's voice rang out in the small, sterile room causing both men to look up startled. "Every damn time one of you ends up in Medical you do this. Can I at least discharge you before you two molest each other, please?"

"I can't make any promises, Doc," Dean muttered, reluctantly letting his husband gingerly extricate himself from his bed without pulling Dean's IV out. "But I'll be good."

"And he won't make a break for it either," Castiel reassured the older woman as she set a tray of down on the rolling hospital table next to Dean, looking entirely unconvinced by the earnest, besotted expressions on both of the agents' faces. "I'll personally makes sure he stays here until you clear him."

"Well, stranger things _have_ happened," Dr. Harvelle muttered under her breath before tweaking a knob on one of the machines that Dean was plugged in to.

"Yea, Doc," Dean said, suddenly sleepy from the wash of painkillers that the woman must have sent into his bloodstream. "They really have."

The last thing Dean saw before he drifted off to a nightmare free, medicated slumber was his husband, Agent Castiel Collins of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, settling back into his seat and pulling out the tablet that he used for work; muttering something about how he always got stuck doing the archer's paperwork with a fond, alive smirk on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've always wanted to write an Avengers!AU and I took my chance with this prompt to shamelessly run with that desire. I also get to subtly talk about my lesser known ship of Phil Coulson/Clint Barton with Destiel as my cover, I'm so damn giddy over this one shot it's ridiculous. 
> 
> But some housekeeping is in order, surely you noticed I tweaked the MCU to suit my own needs, but really who cares if I make Captain America a woman?! Or the world's sexiest assassin a man (Bluebeard is the male equivalent of Black Widow, btw)?! Or even make the adopted Trickster God into the good son? Yea, I thought you'd all be cool with it too. 
> 
> If you want come visit me on [tumblr](http://itspronounceddeathsteel.tumblr.com), let's digital high five!


End file.
